


casualties of war

by caramelchameleon



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Crossover, Gen, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:45:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6407395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelchameleon/pseuds/caramelchameleon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i started thinking about animorphs/don't starve crossover and i can't stop</p>
<p>this is the first and last times webber morphs</p>
            </blockquote>





	casualties of war

Webster is full of bouncing, restless excitement and can’t stand still. “Abigail isn’t home?” He brushes an unruly shock of black hair away from his forehead; it sticks up in tufts and clumps. Wendy gives a helpless little shrug, flops down to lie on her bed. 

“Something going on with the Sharing again.” She tries to keep her tone light, not show how much it bothers her, because she can’t truly pinpoint the source. Maybe it’s only an overactive imagination, or lingering paranoia after… what they saw. Wendy couldn’t speak for the rest, but she was anticipating a lot of sleepless nights. “At least you coming over gives me a real excuse not to go. What were you going to show me?”

“I did it, Wendy,” Webster says, intense and triumphant. “Like the Andalite said. I turned into one of Father’s goats.” Wendy sits up immediately, eyes bright with interest. 

“Really?”

“I’ll show you - it’s super gross, though - ” Webster closes his eyes, focuses, and there’s a soft little whispering as coarse fur breaks out over his body. It melds through the t-shirt and bike shorts he’s wearing, a confused, melted-looking tangle of color for a few moments before the brown fur asserts itself.

His body twists and folds double, hands landing on the floor as his torso restructures itself. Wendy can’t help but wince - it looks like it ought to be hideously painful - but as his neck stretches like taffy, he looks up at her with still-surprisingly-human eyes, gives her a nod and a smile with lips that are stretching out into a muzzle. The transformation proceeds mercifully quick after that - hands withering into hooves, head restructuring itself, an audible little noise as the tail sprouts. And then there’s a goat, dreadfully out of place in her bedroom, standing where a scrawny teen with a British accent had been not five minutes ago.

“Boy, you weren’t kidding about gross." 

<It’s not the same every time, either.> The disembodied thought floats into her head - for a wild moment, she assumes it’s the alien, it feels the same as when the alien spoke to them - but the Webster-goat is looking at her with intelligence in those weird coinslot-pupils. <I tested it a few times. You’re lucky I figured out what to wear, because the first couple tries I came out of it naked. If it’s not tight to the skin, clothes won’t come along.>

"Very considerate of you." 

<But now we have something to show Abigail, and prove we aren’t totally nuts,> Webster continues. Even as a goat he fidgets, hooves tapping as he does a little dance in place. <When will she be home?>

”…You’d better turn back before Mom comes in and finds a goat in my room, I’m not allowed pets,“ Wendy says, the joke coming out uncharacteristically flat and somber. "I don’t think we should tell her." 

* * *

As time went on, as they learned more, Wendy’s vague suspicions solidified into a horrible truth. Abigail was one of Them. The sister she’d grown up alongside, shared confidences with - was a prisoner in her own head. The sister she had now? Smiling empty smiles, cracking empty jokes, a Yeerk slug wrapped like choking sludge around her dear sister’s brain.

If she had that entire vile, disgusting race in her hands… 

Talons, right now. She was riding the thermals over a big warehouse complex. A front for the Sharing, definitely; an entrance to the Yeerk Pool, very possibly. Wigfrid and Webber were somewhere inside, in spider morph; Woodie and Willow were cockroaches. They’d drawn straws. 

That left Wilson and Wendy as aerial backup and the emergency getaway vehicles - plus the one other member of their ragtag group. Wes - his real Andalite name was too many syllables to comfortably pronounce - was clearly a pale, spindly kid even without the context of the rest of his species. Compared to the few glimpses they’d gotten of valiant Carruli before her sacrifice, and of Visser Three’s horrifyingly intimidating host, he was downright pathetic-looking. It was something genetic, not a sickness, or morphing would have fixed it - but the power of morphing meant his physical strength meant less than nothing, anyway. 

Currently he was perched right on the building itself, acting as a relay between the bugs and the birds, as well as a living timer, keeping tabs on how long everyone had been morphed. <Webster and Wigfrid just moved out of my thought-speak range; Woodrow and Willow cannot reach them either.> he reported. <They have almost certainly found something. I advised them to leave it and return, but I am not sure they heard me, Prince Wilson.>

<Just Wilson, thank you,> he replies, nervousness thrumming underneath his mental ‘voice.’ <Could you tell the other two to come back, at least?> 

<Already on it,> a third mind-voice speaks up. <We’re aiming for the south alleyway. Don’t suppose one of you could guide us to a safe place to demorph, eh?>

<Of course, Woodie,> Wilson replies, peels off from the thermal to spiral down closer. Wendy stays where she is, circling high, helpless at this distance, and she can’t shake the idea that a vulture morph might have been more appropriate. 

* * *

Wigfrid’s thought-speak voice is the 'louder’ of the two, but it comes in faint and garbled when it finally does come. < \- found it! We f - wn a sh - e fou - >

<There’s no time!> Wes blares back at them, as strongly as he can. <Get out, right now! _Demorph_! >

<How much - ?>

<None! Get out! Now!>

Waiting is agony. Only Wes knows precisely how much time is left, but they all know it can’t be much. The birds’ eyes are sharp enough to see the tiny black-brown shape of a wolf-spider tumble out into that same alleyway where Woodie and Willow are waiting, growing and shifting as soon as it’s cleared the building. Too slow, tortuously slow. One spider. Then two. Are they in time? 

The three raptors dive toward the alley, one after another.

"Wigfrid, c'mon,” Woodie is saying, crouched beside her twisted, swelling body. Willow is standing by, looking grim, repeatedly, absentmindedly flicking her lighter into a tiny flame. Wigfrid looks like something out of a horror film, a shock of red hair growing practically strand by strand out of her too-spidery head, as the spider’s limbs slowly wither. She’s still much too small. Why is it taking her so long to morph? They have to be in time. “Webber, Wig, you can do this. Back to human." 

Webster - Webster starts screaming - a despairing, wordless wail in open thought-speech. He’s growing, but staying almost entirely spider - basketball-sized, dog-sized. Wendy demorphs from her hawk in an adrenaline-fueled rush, staggers forward with her wings still melting into arms to place one of those sloppy, unformed hands on what for lack of a better word might be his shoulder.

<Shh, shh - Webster, focus,> she says, holds out her other arm in front of his face so he can watch the human arm reassert itself. <Webster, you’ve gotta be quiet, you can do this. Human. Focus on human.>

<I can’t,> he wails, although he’s gathered himself enough to make it private this time, at least. <Wendy - >  

< _Yes you can_ ,> and then she’s too human for thought-speech - "Yes you can, Webster - shut your eyes, breathe, you can do it -”

<I can’t shut them! I can’t - > He makes an effort, though, she can see it - the hindmost pair of legs atrophy into nothingness, the second is thickening slowly into a human’s legs. <Wendy please help me I can’t.>

“You have to. You’re doing great. Now arms - can you get your arms back? One thing at a time, Webster." 

For a few agonizing, sickening seconds, it looks like it’s working. But the shoulder under her hand stays resolutely covered in stiff, bristly hairs, and although the largest pair of eyes grow eyelids and squeeze shut, the other six black orbs resolutely remain, bulging out of his cheeks and forehead. The remaining four spider limbs can’t seem to decide which pair will disappear and which will turn back into arms. "You’re so close, Web, you can do it." 

The others are crowding around now - even Wigfrid, she’s made it all the way back - but Wendy pays no attention, can’t hear what they’re saying over the pounding of her heart in her ears. What kind of dreadful fate would this be, stuck half in one form and half in another - she refuses to think about it. He’ll make it.

The changes slow to a shuddering stop, too soon, far too soon. He’s trying, she can see him trying, he bites his lip until it bleeds all too easily under the awkward, oversized fangs poking out from under his lip, but nothing will change. Wendy looks over at Wes, staring down the spindly alien, half accusing and half pleading. Wes shakes his head, after the human fashion, spreads six-fingered hands in an apologetic gesture.

Two casualties to this war, then, not deaths but fates worse than death. Abigail, a slave to aliens bent on conquest. Webster, a monster trapped in morph. How many more…?


End file.
